A biophysical model of military spending and its systemic impacts

This paper examines the economic and systemic consequences of military spending using the framework of entropy economics. While much of the existing literature focuses on the relationship between military expenditure and economic growth, relatively little attention has been paid to the structural characteristics of military production itself. Drawing on the entropy-based production theory, this study compares the institutional and economic features of military and civilian industries. Military production is characterized by extremely high fixed costs, concentrated market structures, stable government demand, and rapid technological obsolescence. These features create conditions that may generate high profits for a small number of producers while simultaneously producing limited productive spillovers and significant resource dissipation. The paper further shows how the global arms trade reinforces structural asymmetries between arms-exporting and arms-importing countries, concentrating economic benefits in a small group of producer states while externalizing economic and environmental costs elsewhere. By interpreting militarization through the lens of entropy economics, the analysis highlights the opportunity costs and systemic inefficiencies associated with sustained military investment and contributes to heterodox debates on the political economy of militarization.